The present invention relates to an instrument panel device for vehicles. More particularly, the invention relates to an instrument panel device for a vehicle equipped with an air conditioner.
There have been proposed various instrument panel devices for vehicles, such as in Japanese Utility Model Laid-Open Publication No. 55-175512, in which controlled air from an air conditioner is distributed by air ducts and introduced into a passenger compartment from three different air outlets provided on an instrument panel assembly, i.e., a defroster outlet for a front windshield, a wide air outlet extending substantially over the entire width of the panel assembly, and a small spot outlet directed toward a passenger, the wide and small outlets being alternately selectable for the supply of controlled air.
In such conventional instrument panel device, however, the air ducts distributing the air from the air conditioner to the air outlets are separately fabricated with respect to the instrument panel assembly, thus failing to make an effective use of the inner space of the panel assembly, letting alone the rigidity to be relatively low.
Moreover, in such conventional instrument panel devices, the alternative selection between the wide and small air outlets is effected with a customary manual changeover mechanism unactuatable by a simple one-touch operation and unable to show at a glance which outlet is put in service.
Further, in such conventional instrument panel devices, the changeover mechanism for the alternative selection between the wide and small air outlets is composed of a plate-like deflector having relatively high air resistance, when operated, thus lacking the smoothness of operation.